Dismissal of Black Panther Case a ‘Travesty of Justice’

This is explosive. So watch the mainstream media ignore or downplay it.

Background: the Dept. of Justice had substantively won a civil rights case for voter intimidation by the New Black Panther Party. Nonetheless, the Obama DOJ suddenly dismissed the case, to the consternation of the judge and several career attorneys in the Civil Rights Division of DOJ.

Now, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is investigating whether the DOJ refuses to prosecute violations of voting rights if the victims are white.

The Justice Department is ignoring civil rights cases that involve white victims and wrongly abandoned a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party last year, a top department official testified Friday. He called the department’s conduct a “travesty of justice.”

Christopher Coates, former voting chief for the department’s Civil Rights Division, spoke under oath Friday morning before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, in a long-awaited appearance that had been stonewalled by the Justice Department for nearly a year.

Coates discussed in depth the DOJ’s decision to dismiss intimidation charges against New Black Panther members who were videotaped outside a Philadelphia polling place in 2008 dressed in military-style uniforms — one was brandishing a nightstick — and allegedly hurling racial slurs.

The case has drifted in and out of the limelight over the past year as the commission has struggled to investigate it. Former Justice official J. Christian Adams fueled the controversy when he testified in July and accused his former employer of showing “hostility” toward cases that involved white victims and black defendants. Nearly three months later, Coates backed up Adams’ claims. In lengthy and detailed testimony, he said the department cultivates a “hostile atmosphere” against “race-neutral enforcement” of the Voting Rights Act.

In general, I think a Republican take-over of the House and/or Senate could help Mr. Obama’s 2012 reelection prospects, due to the potential for triangulation that it would offer him.

However, Republicans in control of either house could hold hearings to investigate matters such as DOJ’s alleged refusal to protect the civil rights of white victims. Those hearings would be political dynamite.